What's the future of the MP3 Player?

[BassBomb]

Recently with the larger awareness of piracy for music and the like where is the future of MP3 Player headed?

I don't think the "space race" is over now as 4GB is common and iPod classic hitting 160. Are we going to see even bigger sizes or faster access? Larger SSD?

We got WiFi on iPod touch too, which is nice but I wish there was some kind of extravagant battery life on a MP3 player that touts web browsing.

Bluetooth sync would be a nice feature to see.





Sidenote: What do you think the next iPods will have? When? (I'm hoping for something like the iPod classic to come)

 

[Deeko]

As cell phone media capabilities reach standalone mp3 player capabilities, I think we'll see regular MP3 players start to fade away.

This won't happen for a long time, but the trend will start. I know I haven't touched my Sansa ever since I got my N95.

 

[BZeto]

Stand alone MP3 players will be a thing of the past, much like pagers.

 

[BassBomb]

We are still a long way away from 30GB+ under 250$ good battery life from a phone, not to mention UI for media.

I know I wouldn't be listening to music on my phone but it really depends on how much space/battery life and how easy to use it would be. 4GB+ I probably would since I have 4GB right now

 

[Deeko]

It won't happen overnight but it certainly is coming. Not to say something similar to one of the worst & most annoying commercials of all time, but why would you want to carry a phone and an mp3 player if one device can do both?

 

[Kaido]

Yeah I agree, I think convergence is the way of the future. I ditched my cell phone, MP3 player, and PDA in favor of my iPhone - one slim little device with all-day battery life and easy GUI. Plugs into my computer, my car, my stereo, and my headphones. Not much more I could ask for

 

[shocksyde]

When the iPhone (or any comparable device) hits ~64GB, my MP3 player is going bye-bye.

I don't care about battery life much, my current iPod is constantly car-charged.

 

[RandomFool]

An iphone or similar device (preferably with a qwerty keyboard) on verizon would likely convince me to switch. Their current line up doesn't have anything that really grabs me as being worth the money. A reasonably priced 32 gig microSD cards might convince to me try using my env2 as a music player.

 

[DivideBYZero]

The MP3 player has become an application, not a device.

 

[dainthomas]

Phones will never get as small as my 8GB Nano, nor would I want one. Therefore I'll continue using it.